June books
I read Intensity by Dean Koontz whilst camping. To be more specific I read the majority of this book whilst sitting on the toilet at the campsite as I had a stomach bug. It was one of the books in the campsite lending library when I ran out of reading material.
Chyna Shepherd goes to stay with one of her school friends but things don’t quite go to plan. A psychopath breaks into the family home and kills her friend Laura and her parents and then takes Laura’s body. Chyna doesn’t know her friend is dead so she hides in the killer’s motorhome to try and rescue her friend and so begins a game of cat and mouse. This was a cracking book. Fast paced and exciting and well worth a read.
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Girl Friday by Jane Green is an entirely predictable read which made it perfect reading for when I was camping.
Kit McClore has finally found happiness after getting red of her useless and work-obsessed husband and instead of living in a giant Wall Street funded house she is living in a cosy new home with her children. She has a large circle of female friends who support her as she starts stating men again but these friendships aren’t exactly what they seem.
This is a really basic book in some ways. The writer explains everything to you and therefore it can feel quite twee, but I enjoyed it in a not-thinking sort of way.
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206 Bones by Kathy Reichs is quite a dark story featuring Dr Temperance Brennan who is an anthropologist. She is trying to solve the murder of an elderly woman and she is convinced that it is linked in with three other murders. As well as trying to solve this murder she is also trying to work out who is attempting to sabotage her work as she is convinced she hasn’t made a mistake which could jeopardise her career.
This is quite a a good read although the character of Tempe can be really quite annoying. These books have formed the basis for the hit show Bones and on screen she is eve more annoying than in the books!
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Journey to the South: A Calabrian Homecoming by Annie Hawes is an interesting but not alway easy to read book.
Annie returns with her Italian boyfriend to his homeland of Calebria which is about as far south in Italy as you can get. Totally different to their current home 1000 miles north in Liguria this book is about their discovery of long-lost relatives and recipes and a culture which is so different to their own. The reason this books isn’t so easy to read it is that it is very dense which descriptions of the people and places. Not that this is exactly a bad thing, but it can make for slightly tedious reading.
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The Alphabet Sisters by Monica McInerney is a really charming book.
Three sisters, Anna, Bett and Carrie, known collectively during their childhood as the Alphabet Sisters due to their singing act lose touch over a horrible family argument after Carrie steals Bett’s fiance off her. They are estranged for three years and only reunite after their extremely eccentric and demanding grandmother Lola demands their presence at their parents’ motel for her 80th birthday. They are reunited before a terrible family tragedy draws them closer than ever.
I really enjoyed this book. I thought the characters were really lovely, although there were times when I wanted to slap them and tell them to grow up a bit. The ending did make me cry. It was unexpected and nicely dealt with. A good read 🙂
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Too many fluffy chick lit books mean that I now turn to bloodshed and violence! Immediate Action by Andy McNab is the sequel to his book Bravo Two Zero which I reviewed here.
His second book continues in much the same vein as his first although he talks more about the process of getting into the SAS. I have to admit that the dedication and commitment that these men show both through training and their daily work is extremely impressive. It’s a good read if you like these sorts of books, plenty of violence but an interesting insight into the life of those in the SAS.
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Past Secrets by Cathy Kelly is a feelgood fluiffy book with a happy ending, or should that be happy endingS as there are several story lines in this one book?
Set on Summer Street the novel follows the lives of several of the residents, all with seemingly perfect livesm but all who have dark secrets. Amber, the 17-year old ‘perfect student’ who runs off with a grubby rock-star to America and her mother who has failed to tell Amber she is the result of a liaison with a grubby rock-star. Christie, retired housewife who had an affair with a famous artist and Maggie, Christie’s daughter who is getting over a relationship with a cheating scumbag. All the stories were predictably nice enough and I enjoyed it. A perfect commuting book for when I am on the bus at 7.30am!
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Confessional by Jack Higgins is a pretty pacey read. Mikhail Kelly is a man of many identities, known as Father Michael Kelly, Cussane or his codename of Cuchlain he has been working as a Catholic priest for over 20 years. Over this time he has committed many atrocities, blaming it on different terrorist organisations in Ireland and disrupting th peace process. Both British Intelligence and the IRA have been hunting for him for years. Only one person can kill him, a musical virtuoso called Tanya Voroninova, the surrogate daughter of a KGB general. Cussane is about to start his most darking mission, killing the pope. A good read. Not bad for a charity shop buy!
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Recipes for a Perfect Marriage by Kate Kerrigan is a really lovely and thoughtful book.
Tressa is a 30-something year old food writer and after a few torrid relationships she marries stable, but slightly boring Dan. On return from her honeymoon she realises that their relationship isn’t quite what she would hope it would be. Parallel to Tressa’s story is that of her grandmother Bernadine. Forced into a marriage with a lovely man who has real integrity but who she doesn’t love she constantly thinks of her true love who she was unable to marry. All through her life she thinks of her first love but tends dutifully to her husband.
This book has a recipe at the starts of each chapter, and the following two chapters seem to focus on each women in turn, using the recipe as an example of a period of time in their life, when this food was particularly important. The book shows developing love affairs and the understanding that marriage is something for the long haul and a relationship that has to be worked on, even if it takes a lifetime. For a novel I found this book really helpful, especially as I have recently got married. The story showed that love fluctuates within marriage but it is worth working for. A great book!
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The First Assistant by Clare Naylor & Mimi Hare is about Lizzie Miller, an aspiring film producer who lives in Hollywood. Sadly her aspirations sadly don’t match her achievements, until one of her best friends lists her as associate producer in what he believes to be a complete flop of a film. This film goes on to win an Oscar and suddenly Lizzie finds herself most employable. Sadly during the lead up to this she is left to babysit a badly behaved film star and she rows with her devoted and successful boyfriend as she doesn’t want to be a kept woman. This is quite a good read, but I think it would be even better if I had read the first book!
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Chocolate Wishes by Trisha Ashley is a really sweet read. Chloe Lyon is a single woman who has the most nuts family. Her grandfather is a warlock who writes novels about witchcraft and is opening a museum dedicated to the history of the subject, her aunt (or it is cousin? – I can’t remember!) is a gypsy who reads the tea-leaves and the Tarot cards and her half-brother is a 16-year-old goth who towers over her. Chloe herself makes chocolate wishes, hollow chocolates with a little message in, a bit like fortune cookies which she sells over the internet. The whole family move to a new village where there begin to ingratiate themselves into village life, and all is going well until the new vicar arrives and it turns out to be an ex-boyfriend who was a successful musician and who broke her heart. This is a nice read with an utterly predictable ending but I enjoyed it.
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My Single Friend by Jane Costello is the most predictable of all chick lit novels I have ever read! Lucy is a successful PR person with a disastrous love life. She picks men who treat her like crap and who she lies to constantly to try and make herself feel better. The only man she is honest with is her geeky scientist flat-mate Henry whom she has known for 14 years. Lucy and her friends decide to give Henry a make-over to help him find a girlfriend and rather predictably shallow Lucy decides she is actually in love with him the minute he starts going out with one of her friends. The story was so predictable it almost made the book boring, but it was ok.
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So… that’s my lot this month… can you tell I am now spending two hours a day on a bus due to commuting to work. My reading seems to have increased somewhat!